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Take care,” my father used to say, when first instructing Robert in the art of blowing glass. “Control is of supreme importance. One false movement and the expanding glass will be shattered.” I remember the dawning excitement in my brother’s eyes—could he, dared he, go beyond the limits prescribed? It was as though he longed for the explosion that would wreck his own first effort and his father’s temper into the bargain. There comes this supreme moment to the glass-blower, when he can either breathe life and form into the growing bubble slowly taking shape before his eyes, or shatter it into a thousand fragments. The decision is the blower’s, and the judgment too; the throwing of the judgment in the balance made the excitement—for my brother.
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